national parks, snark & occasional feelings
This week, y’all. It has not been kind. Here’s a few things that have made this miserable week survivable:
Earlier this year, a brewery opened less than a mile from my house and I was instantly enamored. It’s my new favorite place and I’m there almost every weekend, sometimes alone and sometimes with friends, but always with a book. Their beer is funky and wild, and their small batch offerings are ever-changing.
Mercury is in retrograde and I’m about to turn 35. Here’s a few of my favorite things.
To be a total hipster dick about it, I’ve been following the Iditarod every March for the past 20 or so years. It’s a pre-birthday tradition of mine, to watch this 1,000-mile dog sled race unfold via the internets. I love it and it’s the only sport I can talk somewhat intelligently about.
I don’t even want to talk about the crazy shit that’s been going down in Virginia this past week, so let’s focus on the good stuff, deal?
I’m not always a coffee drinker. I go through phases every few years, picking up a daily coffee habit, weaving it into my daily routine and then, just because, I’ll quit the shit and live a life mostly caffeine-free, minus an occasional cup of tea.
As I looked around at my life’s recent additions this week I realized most of them are things I’ve resisted, things I’ve even sassed and snarked about.
“I don’t need that,” I’d say, scowling like almost always. Or I’d declare I just simply can’t, can’t wake up early enough to go to the gym before work, can’t keep additional things alive in my house. Can’t, with a side of don’t fucking wanna.
Last week was the week I almost cried at work, you guys. It was not great, not even a little bit, plus it’s the holiday season and you know how I feel about that. This week was better, a little less chaotic, a little less daunting, but damn if I’m not really looking forward to a little escape into the woods next week.
What the hell happened to 2018, y’all? I’m feeling woefully unprepared for the colder temperatures, the holiday season and the end of another year, but here’s a few delights that have helped downgrade my grump level.
I know I’m living in the future because I don’t have to go looking for neat shit to buy on the internet anymore, it just presents itself to me on my Instagram feed.
I spent the weekend in Philadelphia visiting my friend, Tara, and a grand total of FOUR national park sites. I’d visited her before, always with a group of friends, and Philly is always, always a great time, but after perusing the National Park Service map of park units and talking to Tara the last time we were together, I realized I needed to get myself on a Philly-centric National Park Adventure. It was exactly the sort of escape I needed, Tara is an A+, top-notch tour guide and I never get tired of the two of us introducing ourselves together.
I bought these sandals at the end of summer last year because I wanted a stylish sandal that still had some support and OMG, I love these shoes so much. They’re sold out, they are so good. I wore them all day on Saturday, walking actual miles with Tara around Philly and my feet didn’t complain once. Fingers crossed they’re not gone forever.
Years ago, back when I first started giving a shit about my personal fitness, I used MyFitnessPal to track calories and drop a few extra pounds. I eventually stopped tracking my food and stopped weighing myself and started focusing on how I felt instead of what the scale said, but every so often it’s helpful for me to do a check-in and track my food for a week or a month, just to make sure I’m still making smart choices. So I’m doing that and I really do love MyFitnessPal. It’s easy to use and I get a little obsessive about plotting and tracking all my calories.
Hanover tomatoes are a thing around Richmond. They are so good and so perfect and there’s even a festival dedicated to them and while I didn’t get to go this year, some friends still got me a giant pile of tomatoes and for a while, I was on a tomato-eating rampage. I’ll probably finish out my tomato stash in the next day or two with one more BLT, but damn if I don’t love this time of year and those tomatoes.
I’d read 10 books in 2018 before I realized they were all by women and then I was like, ok, maybe I’ll do this for a quarter, but now it’s July, I’ve read 42 books and each and every one of them was written by a woman. Stephany inspired me to diversify my reading portfolio, so I’ve made a conscious effort to read books not just by women of color, but also by women from backgrounds that are different from my own. So far, it’s been great. I’ve read some truly incredible books this year, most recently The Girl Who Smiled Beads by Clemantine Wamariya, about the violence in Rawanda and Wamariya’s attempts to escape it, attempts that eventually led her to the United States. It’s a heartbreaking read, of course, put important and powerful.
Of course my trip to the Outer Banks was a highlight. I love it down there so, so much and now I’m thinking I need to get myself down there more often, maybe once a year or so. It’s easy and inexpensive, the drive is short, the beach lovely and it’s even easy to take the dogs along with me.
2. THE BOLD TYPE.My lady friends were talking about this show and described it as a younger version of “Younger.” And it is. That’s really the best way to describe it. There’s no tricky age thing going on, but the world they live in is pretty similar and it’s filled with badass, bossy ladies. Set in New York, it’s the story of three 20-somethings trying to find their place in the world, both at work and in their personal lives. It’s smart and funny, tackles some serious and difficult issues and is absolutely delightful.
I managed to stay mostly on top of my workout schedule during the mayhem at work, but I ended up missing yoga for a few weeks in a row. I only just came back to it earlier this year and I only go once a week, but I really missed it. I finally made it back to class this week, and it was great. I love the class and the people in it who always tell me about the latest Richmond news, especially the latest places to get a good beer or a great snack.
(Locals: I go to True North Yoga & Wellness on Richmond’s Northside and I love it – it’s a legit community that’s safe and supportive of yogis at all different levels.)
Y’all, I’m obsessed. At Glacier National Park there is a bear. A black bear who lives in a cottonwood tree. This bear was first observed on March 23rd as it slowly woke up from the deep slumber of hibernation. Knowing that sometimes a bear hibernates in this tree, the incredible folks at Glacier set up a webcam in advance of bear-waking-up season and so now you can watch this bear participate in bear shenanigans 24/7.
For a good part of the day, the bear lazes about, sometimes out of sight inside the den. It hasn’t left the cottonwood tree yet, but it does frequently frolic among the branches of the tree, sometimes even getting in fights with sticks. The bear has also been spotted making worried faces at a visiting bird, licking snow off the edges of their den, yawning, stretching, making den renovations, staring down at the ground which is very far away, and also just being a bear and doing bear things.
I’ve seen a few bears in the wild, in both Alaska and Virginia, and I’ve seen bears in the zoo, but this is a totally different sort of thing. It is a for-real wild bear living its best bear life doing bear things and it’s maybe the best thing the internet has ever given me.
I acquired a cold over the weekend and spent Sunday and Monday on the couch in full recovery mode. It was the first cold I’ve had in a really long time – months, for sure, maybe even more than year. The cold was over pretty quickly and it never reached the most awful level, and I’m going to go ahead and give the credit to the Zicam Fruit Drops I popped at the onset. I take them whenever I travel and whenever I start to feel a tickle in my throat or a sniffle in my nose and I swear they’re a big part of why I’ve been so healthy this winter.
3. GLOW.I know I’m late to the party on this, like always, but I watched every single episode of GLOW – which stands for Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling – while I was sick, and, you guys, IT’S SO GOOD. I’m just sad I now have to wait for the next season because I NEED IT.
4. DOG WALKS.One of the things I wanted to be better about this year was taking my fake wolves for walks, and with spring weather here for a few days, me and the pups have taken some delightful walks this week. I think we made it out three times, each time walking for a few miles. They love it, I get my steps in and being out in the sun was a welcome change after feeling so shitty over the weekend.
5. THE HIKE I FINALLY GOT TO GO ON.